Birmingham Council Increases Lodging Tax to Fund Tourism Efforts

Despite warnings that doing so might backfire, the Birmingham City Council voted Tuesday to increase the city’s lodging tax.

The ordinance, which drew fierce criticism from local hoteliers, adds a $3 per night, per room surcharge to the city’s lodging tax code. The revenue generated by that surcharge is to be allocated “exclusively for sports and entertainment recruitment and development, tourism and infrastructure improvements.”

That surcharge is in addition to the city’s current 17.5% lodging tax rate, which is above the national average of 13.4%.

The ordinance was proposed — and at times angrily defended — by Council President Pro Tempore William Parker, who said the increase would add $4 million in annual revenue. Parker argued that this extra money would make the city “more competitive” in recruiting sporting events, which would in turn increase the city’s tourism.

“If we are able to bring sporting events to Birmingham, that’s going to bring more people here,” Parker said. “We’re doing good now with UAB (football) and the Magic City Classic and the Birmingham Bowl, but we have to do better … We need the resources, bottom line, if we’re going to stay competitive and grow the city’s economy.”

Parker said that the ordinance mirrors one passed by Hoover last year, which attached a $2 per night, per room surcharge to its lodging tax. That increase was intended to address Hoover’s budget shortfall; Parker insisted that this was not the case with his proposal.

The ordinance does not specifically allocate where that will be spent; the council will have to approve any expenditures using the revenue.

But some hoteliers present at Tuesday’s meeting suggested that Parker’s projection was optimistic — and that instead of generating revenue, the surcharge would end up driving visitors away from Birmingham.

“There’s a potential negative impact on businesses in the city,” said Chris Townsley, the general manager of Birmingham’s Marriott Hotel. Townsley argued that the additional surcharge would effectively push Birmingham’s lodging tax to over 20%, which might dissuade convention and meeting planners from choosing the city.

“20% seems to be the magic number with meeting planners,” he said. “Stay below 20% and you don’t get much pushback.”

Townsley said that Birmingham hoteliers had suggested a compromise to Parker — a 1.5% increase to the lodging tax, which would bring the city’s rate to 19% — but that it had been ignored.

District 9 Councilor John Hilliard, a vehement supporter of the ordinance, told Townsley that hotels would “benefit from the surcharge.”

“You’re the winners in this,” he said. “At the end of the day, the hotel industry will benefit from this opportunity.”

District 5 Councilor Darrell O’Quinn, the ordinance’s most vocal opponent, said that the tax would make Birmingham compare unfavorably with surrounding municipalities with lower lodging taxes.

“We do not have the capacity to affect Hoover, Homewood or Vestavia’s lodging tax,” he said. “There is potential for $4 million of revenue …, but I would also say that there is a potential for a $4 million loss because we would be sending our business to adjacent municipalities.”

Parker, who grew visibly angrier as each opponent of the ordinance spoke, interrupted O’Quinn and told him the move was no riskier than the moratorium on self-storage facilities that had passed earlier in the meeting. At this, Council President Valerie Abbott, who was silent for most of the discussion, urged Parker to cool down. She would do so again later in the meeting when he began heatedly arguing with another hotelier opposing the ordinance.

District 8 Councilor Steven Hoyt, meanwhile, argued that the council should pass the ordinance because it had the authority to do so. “As a city, we’re very limited in terms of what we can do (by the state Legislature),” he said. “This is clearly in our control, and if we don’t exercise the little bit of power we do have, then soon we’re not going to have any power at all… The few things we have control of, we need to exercise.”

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Coronavirus

Confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases in Alabama have risen by 2,742 in the past week, an average of 391.7 cases per day. Deaths also have risen by 79, an average of 11.3 deaths a day.

That shows a decrease in average daily cases and a slight increase in average daily deaths from the week before, when the state averaged 519 total cases and 9.9 deaths a day.

Case counts and deaths reported on the Alabama Department of Public Health’s website had been undercounted this past week because the national surveillance system had been overwhelmed, department officials said. The result was that the site appeared to indicate Alabama was making more progress in the fight against the coronavirus than it actually was.

But the department reported Saturday morning that the backlog had been cleared. Read more.

Economy

A coalition of community groups, in partnership with the city of Birmingham, has set up the Birmingham Business Relief Fund to give grants to small businesses affected by protestors’ vandalism Sunday night. “Many businesses were already suffering from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and these funds will assist businesses as they rebuild, repair and renew their operations,” Ivan Holloway, executive director at Urban Impact, said in a statement announcing the program. Read more.

City of Birmingham

Responding to questions this morning on the NBC Today show, Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said he received death threats in response to his order to take down a Confederate monument in the wake of destructive protests Sunday night.

“Unfortunately, in the state of Alabama, there’s a lot of people who like to participate in revisionist history,” Woodfin said, speaking with host Al Roker. “They believe it’s American to support the Civil War as relates to these competitive monuments. They’re mad because we took the statue down and, yes, there have been several threats. Read more.

Race in Birmingham

A Confederate monument that stood in a downtown Birmingham’s Linn Park for 115 years is now gone. Crews removed the structure following protests over police treatment of black Americans that turned destructive on Sunday, damaging many buildings. This happened in a city that prides itself on its history of nonviolent protest during the civil rights era. Rev. Thomas Wilder leads Bethel Baptist Church in Collegeville. It’s the same church Birmingham civil rights leader Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth once led. Wilder spoke with WBHM’s Andrew Yeager. Read more.

COVID-19

The Jefferson County Department of Health has released COVID-19 numbers by areas in the county, but not down to the ZIP code level that local officials and the media have been requesting.

Health department officials have said releasing information by ZIP code would violate federal medical privacy laws. So, they created regions, which can include one or more ZIP codes, that take in 20,000 or more people where there have been at least 10 confirmed cases of COVID-19.

The material does show some areas where the coronavirus has penetrated more deeply, including several western, southwestern and north-central areas of the county and sections of Birmingham, but the concentration is lighter in other areas. Read more.

The coronavirus pandemic has spurred a new wave of legal challenges to Alabama’s voting laws, particularly its absentee ballot requirements. The League of Women Voters of Alabama is the latest group to file a lawsuit against the state claiming its voting rules are too restrictive. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Montgomery County Circuit Court, urges state officials to expand absentee ballot access during the November general election. Read more.

UAB epidemiologist Dr. Rachael Lee today said that Alabamians will have to exercise personal responsibility to keep the state’s increasing COVID-19 infections from overwhelming the health care system.

Lee said that the increasing number of positive cases is “concerning,” particularly as the state increasingly relaxes restrictions and as the number of tests administered remains steady. Alabama is one of several states being watched because the number of confirmed positive cases of the potentially deadly viral infection are going up.

Lee held UAB’s weekly coronavirus press conference the day after the largest single day increase in coronavirus cases in the state. She addressed a wide range of questions during the more than 45-minute-long press conference, dealing largely with the spike in cases, hospitals’ nearing capacity in some areas, how the coronavirus differs from the flu, remdesivir, the feared second wave and the ongoing need for personal protective measures. Read more.

Though deploying in much smaller numbers than they did during the height of U.S. involvement in the Iraq and Afghan wars, Alabama National Guard troops are still deploying, and in the time of COVID-19, they are doing things a little differently.

About 30 soldiers with the Guard’s 666th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Company are expected to deploy in the near future for about nine months overseas. Earlier this month, the soldiers with the Jacksonville-based unit arrived at a mobilization station for additional training before they deploy. But the soldiers did not hit the ground running. Because of the COVID-19 threat, they have some additional do’s and don’ts. Read more.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham and Southern Research of Birmingham will be part of an international program that will try to identify existing drugs that may be effective in treating people exposed to COVID-19.

The effort, coordinated by Scripps Research of La Jolla, California, involves ReFRAME, a large collection of drugs developed for other diseases and known to be safe for humans, UAB said today. Read more.

The spread of COVID-19 and the strain it has placed on Alabama’s health care system has inspired a new coalition to push for Medicaid expansion in the state, but support from Republican leadership still seems doubtful. Read more.

An Auburn University professor will soon begin testing new COVID-19 vaccines to see how they work alone or with other ingredients to help slow the spread of the virus.

Dr. Constantinos Kyriakis, an associate professor for the College of Veterinary Medicine, will head the testing while working with Professor Ted Ross, the director of the Center for Vaccines and Immunology at the University of Georgia. Kryiakis will begin animal trials to investigate the effectiveness of different vaccine candidates.

The testing will involve vaccine candidates’ effectiveness at triggering an immune system response in pigs. The tests will see what other ingredients could trigger a greater immune system response, in order to make the most effective vaccine. Read more.

UAB doctors hope a low-risk, FDA-approved drug to be tested at UAB Hospital will serve as a “rescue therapy” for ventilated patients with lungs seriously damaged by the coronavirus, COVID-19. UAB is among the first in the nation to offer inhaled nitric oxide as a potential viable treatment in its intensive care unit for the sickest of these patients, officials said in a telephone news conference. Read more.

As the fear of coming into contact with the novel coronavirus increases, people are asking how long the virus can live on surfaces and in the air. There’s no one easy answer because the virus can live for different lengths of time on different surfaces, but a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine sought to break down those risks. The study found that the half-life of the virus hanging in the air is about one hour. But researchers still could measure viable virus in the air after three hours. Read more.

Law enforcement

The Alabama Department of Transportation is considering allowing law enforcement agencies access to ALDOT rights-of-way and structures to install license plate readers and other surveillance equipment.

At least one Alabama lawmaker said legislation may be needed to regulate the use of the devices and information they collect.

Tony Harris, government relations manager for ALDOT, told Alabama Daily News the proposed rules are a result of recent requests from multiple police agencies. Read more.

Jefferson County Commission

Polling places in Jefferson County could be in line to receive more money to host elections, according to a report from Barry Stephenson, chairman of the Jefferson County Board of Registrars.

Speaking at Thursday’s meeting of the Jefferson County Commission, Stephenson said that the county last increased the rent offered to sites that host polling places in October 2018. That took the rent from $25 to $100.

The registrar said an increase in rent this year would be a sign of goodwill. When asked, Stephenson said the rent could be raised to $250 for each of the county’s 175 polling places; he said only 60 polling places actually accept rent. Read more.

Open Records

Two environmental groups filed suit this week under the Alabama Open Records Act seeking to force state officials to turn over documents related to the 35th Avenue Superfund federal bribery trial.

Over the past few years many nonprofits, news organizations and others have attempted to use the law to gain access to information but often have been stonewalled by agencies and their officers.

The Environmental Defense Alliance and Gasp, a clean air and human rights advocate, filed a lawsuit claiming that Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, the director of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management and a member of the Alabama Environmental Management Commission violated the Open Records Act by denying access to public records. Read more.

City of Birmingham

Birmingham’s FY 2021 budget will be delayed for three months as the city works to ascertain the financial impact of COVID-19.

Mayor Randall Woodfin told the City Council on Tuesday morning that the city could take a $75 million to $110 million hit to next year’s budget because of losses in revenues from sources such as sales, use and occupational taxes. He hopes delaying the budgeting process will give city leaders more time to understand the extent of the damage.

“Adjustments to an operational budget of our size to offset this amount of deficit would require major reductions and austerity measures to our current cost structures,” Woodfin said. Read more.

Birmingham has extended its ordinances requiring face coverings in public places through May 29. That’s a week later than the May 22 deadline the council set last week, and councilors have suggested that further extensions are likely as the number of COVID-19 cases in Alabama continues to rise.

The face covering ordinance has been in effect since May 1. It requires residents to wear a device covering their nose and mouth to stymie the spread of the virus. Medical-grade masks are not required; scarves, bandanas or other fabrics will suffice. A document answering frequently asked questions about the ordinance, including a list of exceptions, is available on the city’s website. Read more.

CongressionalWatch

The House on Friday narrowly approved a $3 trillion coronavirus relief package (HR 6800). Alabama’s representatives voted along party lines, with Democrat Rep. Terri Sewell voting to approve and the Republicans voting against the matter. The measure is unlikely to become law. Republican senators oppose it, and President Trump has said he would veto it. Read more.

Birmingham City Council

The Birmingham City Council has delayed a proposal to bring a new football classic to Legion Field this October. Mayor Randall Woodfin’s proposal, which appeared before the council Tuesday, would make Legion Field the site of an annual football game between Morehouse and Tuskegee universities, two historically black colleges and universities. Read more.

Politics

U.S. Sen. Doug Jones took Attorney General William Barr to task Friday, saying Barr had tossed aside the rule of law in the Justice Department’s decision to drop a 3-year-old criminal case against former Trump Administration National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. ”As a former U.S. attorney, I have to say I was absolutely appalled,” Jones, D-Ala., said during a Friday video news conference. “The attorney general, I think, has basically thrown the rule of law out the window” and “given a green light for people to lie to the FBI.” Read more.

Education

Alabama’s graduating high schoolers of 2019 had an overall lower performance on the ACT standardized test for the second year in a row, according to the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama. But not by much. Read more.

CongressionalWatch

WASHINGTON — All of Alabama members in the U.S. House of Representatives voted last week to approve a $484 billion package to help hospitals, small businesses, farms and other recipients cope with economic misfortune over the next few months of the coronavirus pandemic. Read More

About News

Never more than Monday have I worried that Donald Trump spends too much time trying to defend his past actions and not enough on forging a plan to eradicate the coronavirus and return the country to normal. Read more.

U.S. Senate Runoff Election

The outbreak of the new coronavirus has drastically altered the campaigns for Alabama’s runoff elections. Originally scheduled for March 31, runoffs for the Republican races for Congress and U.S. Senate are now postponed until July 14.

The pandemic and its total consumption of the news cycle have also shifted the narrative for candidates. Former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who is running for his former seat in the U.S. Senate, has capitalized on the situation to take an aggressive position against China and highlight his foreign policy bonafides.

In the runoff, Sessions faces former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville, who won 33% of the vote to Sessions’ 32% in the March 3 primary election. Todd Stacy of Alabama Daily News interviewed Sessions and talked about his campaign and the issues he is discussing. Read more.

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